Just a small town ring, livin' in a lonely boutique
by jazzypizzaz
Summary: Blaine is at the jewelry shop talking to Jan about his engagement, but the ring he's looking at to get for Kurt has bigger aspirations. Also the ring is kind of a pretentious douche. Crack fic through the POV of a sentient inanimate object.


In spite of sitting on a nice velvet cushion surrounded by platinum and gold bands and being stroked with wonder by a boy with huge swooning eyes, the braided silver ring couldn't help but feel sorry for himself.

Most rings couldn't hope for more than being locked away in a jewelry case for months before a frantic man in need of an appeasement bought it up for an apathetic wife who would again lock it away in a jewelry case until her death when grandchildren would argue over who got rights to what. However, if a ring had the chance to be bought as a wedding ring, its prestige would shine on for decades. A loving wife will polish the silver weekly, cherishing the band until passing it on to her grandson to give his fiance when the time came. The chance to become a family heirloom, linked to grand romance and cross-generational ties, would be the ultimate honor for a piece of jewelry.

Well... except perhaps for that one gold band that got to play the leading character in the epic fantasy trilogy Lord of the Rings.

But that was a single unprecedented event in history. It wasn't every day- or generation- that a simple gold band could achieve worldwide stardom. The precious metals and stones caste system was a strict one, and while the braided ring wasn't likely to end up with his own television series after starting from a tiny shop in Lima, OH, at least as a wedding ring he could hope for some sort of familial stability. The folks of Lima were not the illustrious, highly esteemed upper crust a ring could dream of, and they were often miserable, but most of them lived quiet lives with a lack of inertia that kept rings solidly on fingers. It would be a humble life but with a quiet, dignified meaning that the braided ring was quite looking forward to.

As a comparatively flashy band designed for men, he did know that it would be quite some time before he would be chosen. However, long-suffering idealist that he was, the ring chose to think of his design as an asset. The mechanics and factory workers with their grubby, calloused hands would pass him by, until one day- perhaps after their jet had to make an emergency landing?- bonafide royalty would wander into Jan's humble shop just to kill some time. For some reason. The princess would pick him up and admire his curves and glamour; the prince would fall in love all over again with the wonder in her eyes; she would insist he buy the ring and wear it at every publicity event. That Kate Middleton did have excellent taste. Hey, a young ring could daydream couldn't he? He had to do something to fill the time.

A wedding for a nice middle-classed family would have sufficed, however. And this should have been his big chance at success, but the dumbass starry-eyed kid was going to ruin it all. He was perhaps 17 at most? Jewelry- timeless creatures that they are- aren't good at gauging human age, but the ring knew that this wide-eyed kid couldn't have seen enough of life to know what love was, and he definitely wasn't ready to get married. He should be looking at ring pops to ask out a date for prom, not considering marriage.

Now the boy was gabbing with Jan about his "soulmate" and how they were meant to be together for eternity. Yadda yadda. How much could this silly kid love this girl so much if he was looking at his own wedding ring before even picking out an engagement ring for her? Maybe he was going to propose with his own ring, trying to be creative, but bucking tradition like that really just showed he was a naive self-centered kid. Then the girl was going to say no, and the braided ring would probably end up at a pawn shop next to broken clarinets and and bent golf clubs and shattered dreams.

Gross.

Hopefully since the boy was looking at this tiny Lima shop, and not its swankier chain location in Westerville, didn't have the money to buy him, and Jan would gracefully steer him towards the plain, boring nickel-based bands...

"Uhh... well this ring would be for Kurt, actually. He's my soulmate. Gay marriage just became legal in Rhode Island, you know! It's already legal in New York where we'll live, and soon it will be legal in Ohio too! It's history and it's progress and most Americans support it, you'll see it won't be long now…"

Oh. Huh. Well that certainly explained the situation better. Even though this Blaine kid was so earnest and presumptuous it made the braided ring want to gag, at least he wasn't selfish. He was trying to adapt gendered ring traditions to his own situation, nothing wrong with that. Rings don't care about human anatomy.

Except... humans married opposite genders to produce children, right? Even if these two babies managed to stay together and married for decades, what would happen to the ring after that, with no children to pass it down to? Assuming the boy even said yes, which, if he's living in glamorous New York why would he? Tons of gay dudes he could be hooking up with instead- especially if young Burt Reynolds was in love with him. The braided ring liked to think he had good taste in men and that men interested in him had good taste. Plus, if they had to wait for other humans to allow them to marry, the ring could be stored in a shoebox under a bed for years. No polishing, no fancy jewelry case, no Jan to display him to buyers. The ring's future was still going to be over until it began. This was not the kind of history the braided ring wanted to be part of.

"Oh my! Yes, yes of course. I quite understand. When would you expect the wedding to be? Will you be marrying in New York or are you willing to wait until Ohio happens? It could be longer than you think, we don't know how the Ohio congress will sway next time a bill comes through or what the Supreme Court decision will be..."

Good ole Jan, talking some sense into the boy. Maybe she'll gently beat the naivety out of him. Sweet lady.

"Well... the proposal is actually part of my plan to get him back. It was my fault we broke up, so the only way to get him back is a big grand romantic gesture and-"

Wait, WHAT?! They weren't even together? This dumbass baby was going to buy him away from his royal future adventures with Prince William, and the guy he was proposing to didn't even want to DATE him?

The braided ring made a conscious decision to tune out the rest of the conversation. He did NOT need to hear anymore of this nonsense, may as well accept his fate and trust Jan's wisdom to work a miracle.

****Hmm... Or maybe little Disney-eyes was Prince William's secret lover? And Kurt is the code name he gave Blaine? A ring can dream.


End file.
